Cordell Academy

For a few years Cordell was counted an educational center: from 1907 until 1911 three institutions here granted high school diplomas, the public school, Cordell Christian College and this academy. The First World War brought hardship to Washita County's many German and Mennonite families, harassed for their heritage or their conscientious objection by vigilantes and the county Council of Defense. By the war's end the German newspaper Oklahoma Vorwärts had stopped publishing, the town of Korn had been renamed Corn, and Cordell Christian College had closed over its pacifist teaching.

What the plaque says

Cordell Academy Site three blocks east Opened in 1906, under auspices of the Dutch Reformed Church, this pioneer school taught the youth here in Christian living. Its motto was "Labor omnia vincit." Presidents to its close in 1911 were: Myron B. Keator, Dr. Jacob Poppen, Rev. C. H. Spaan. Teachers included Harold C. Amos, Laura B. Hilger and Valonia Corley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oklahoma Route 66 Museum — 15 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum of the road in Clinton, decade by decade from the 1926 designation through the Dust Bowl and the war to the 1950s diner.
• Stafford Air & Space Museum — 25 mi
  Weatherford's museum for its astronaut son, Thomas P. Stafford, grown from an airport display case into 75,000 square feet of flight beside I-40 and old Route 66.
• Kiowa Tribal Museum — 25 mi
  The Kiowa Tribe's own museum at its Carnegie complex, where ten murals by Kiowa artists carry the people's story from before memory to the present day.
• Elk City Museum Complex — 27 mi
  Elk City's museums on old 66: the National Route 66 and Transportation Museum's drive through all eight states, a pioneer Old Town, a farm and ranch hall and a blacksmith shop.

More markers nearby

• Red Bluff Community Church and School — 5.4 mi
• Tacola/Cloud Chief School — 8.6 mi
• Site of First Washita County Court House — 8.6 mi
• Canute — 18 mi